222 FIELD-STUDIES OF RARER BIRDS 



mention " carriers," daily lose the number of their 

 mess owing to the prowess of the Peregrine Falcon. 

 In fact, on the cliffs of Sussex, Kent, and the Isle 

 of Wight, these, in conjunction with Daws, 

 Partridges (many a red-handed foray being, of 

 course, made far inland), and any chance species 

 luckless enough to dare the ogre's path, consti- 

 tutes its chief diet. In some districts, for instance, 

 Rooks form a favourite item of its m&nu. Smaller 

 deer, however, are by no means despised. In and 

 around different eyries I have examined the relics 

 of Coots, Moorhens, Rails, Starlings, Finches, 

 Buntings, Wagtails, Cuckoos, and Chats, not to 

 mention beetles, while even the Merlin, Kestrel, 

 Short-eared Owl, Crow, and Chough do not always 

 escape its unwelcome attentions. Occasionally a 

 leveret plucked from the fallow (I have only once 

 known of it personally), a young rabbit gambolling 

 on some broken portion of the cliff, or a rat, go to 

 swell the throng of slain, while rarely a Peregrine, 

 imbued one can only suppose with a spirit some- 

 times averse to the customary habit of " making 

 a quarry " when the latter is on the wing, turns 

 poultry snatcher as well, for which delinquency it 

 is nearly certain sooner or later to pay the extreme 

 penalty. Sometimes a pair of Peregrines will 

 attack and successfully pull down a Heron. 



Occasionally will a Peregrine, as it dashes past, 

 clip a victim off one of the topmost sprays of a tall 

 tree, but normally it adopts quite different tactics. 



